Prince Antonio, Prince Luiz of Orleans-Braganza’s younger brother, gave us another example of wise pedagogy. He recalls that at Christ the King High School, of the Pallottine Fathers in Jacarezinho (state of Paraná), there was a German priest who was extremely severe and inflexible in matters of discipline. He would immediately punish any misbehavior or insubordination by a student.
Once, Prince Antonio, still in elementary school, committed a small disciplinary fault in the playground and realized that the prefect of discipline had seen it. He waited for the deserved punishment, but none came, much to his astonishment. The priest pretended he had seen nothing.
Recess ended, and classes resumed, and still, there was no punishment. However, as the day ended, the priest called Prince Antonio to the headmaster’s office. In private, he told the little prince: “I saw that you misbehaved but pretended not to notice. Do you know why? Because you’re a prince, and whoever is a prince should set an example to others. I didn’t want to punish you in front of others so they would not have the bad example of seeing a misbehaved prince being punished publicly. Precisely because you’re a prince, your duty to be well behaved is greater, and so is the gravity of your fault.”
He concluded: “You were not punished in front of the others, but will be punished now. And because you’re a prince, your punishment will be doubled.”
And he gave Prince Antonio one of those wholesome, old-school punishments, which are so lacking in today’s schools.
“I never forgot that priest’s lesson,” says Prince Antonio. “It marked me for life.”
Extracted from Armando Alexandre dos Santos, “Sacrifice and Responsibility in the Formation of Princes,” Jornal de Piracicaba, May 16, 2020.
Armando Alexandre dos Santos, Ph.D., is a member of the Monarchist Circle of Piracicaba, Brazil.
Nobility.org translation.
Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 776
